Words for Suffering

Published: March 10, 1998

Like many horrifying expressions in the 20th century, the term ''concentration camp'' started out as a ghastly euphemism. British authorities first coined it to describe their encampments for Afrikaner civilians during the Boer War in South Africa. During the Third Reich, the Nazis applied the phrase ''concentration camp'' to the places where millions of Jews and other prisoners were starved, tortured and eventually sent to the gas chambers at nearby ''killing centers.'' In a grim irony of history, the United States used the term to describe the camps in which tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans were incarcerated during the hysteria over the war in the Pacific.

Next month an exhibit will open at Ellis Island called ''America's Concentration Camps: Remembering the Japanese-American Experience.'' If the title was intended to shock, it has succeeded. Some American Jewish groups have strongly objected, arguing that the term has become indelibly associated with the Holocaust and would be cheapened by being used in this way. Their concern that the Holocaust be remembered as a uniquely vile expression of human evil is a reasonable one.

But it does no service to the memory of the victims of Nazi genocide to distort an ugly truth about American history. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, when innocent Japanese-American families were seized and placed in camps surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by sentries, President Franklin Roosevelt called the sites concentration camps. Since that is how authorities defined what the Japanese-Americans themselves experienced, it is only logical for the victims to want to remember it that way, and for others to honor that intention.

At a meeting yesterday, Japanese-American and Jewish groups agreed to append an explanation of the term to the displays at the exhibit. That sensible step should serve to enhance the educational experiences for all. Calling the American camps what American leaders themselves called them does not diminish the horror of the Holocaust or equate the persecution of Japanese-Americans with genocide. There is a value to preserving the continuity of language even when it is a painful thing to do.